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KC laughed, genuinely laughed, as we headed out of the testing building. Jonas fell in at her side and I walked on the other. It was still early enough in the day, but it had begun to snow again.
“Do you bowl?” I asked, more curious than anything else.
“Yep,” she said. “We learned how to do that for a video. It’s way more fun than I thought.”
“What about pool?” Jonas said, and it was the most animated I’d seen him in a while.
There was a sly smile on her lips and I shook my head. “Yes, she knows how to do that, too. Okay, ten minutes, get into some comfortable, warm clothes, grab jackets, and meet back here. I’ll sign you both out.”
“Ramsey?” KC said as they turned to the stairs and I glanced at her.
“Yeah?”
“Are you inviting Lachlan?”
I hadn’t planned on it. Still, I quirked my brows. “Want me to not?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Just—wanted to prepare if he was going too…you know what, just ignore me. I’ll be back.” She started up the stairs, but Jonas glanced at me with one hand on the banister.
“Go,” I told him. “I’ll deal with Lachlan.”
How? I wasn’t sure yet. But I’d figure it out.
Thirty-Eight
KC
A FEW DAYS LATER…
“It’s not good news,” Bronson warned, his tone gloomy.
“Don’t think that way,” I cautioned. It was snowing again. The campus really had taken on a magical winter wonderland appearance. The Fire and Ice Dance was around the corner, and I had a date. “You heard what Jackie said the same way I did.”
“When did you become the reasonable one?” The grumble in his voice made me laugh. Nothing about the vandalism in my room or the assault had made it into the media. Even the ambulance visit barely registered a blip on the radar.
The school actually honored the NDA. It meant I could keep Jackie and Bronson from worrying about this. Davina knew, but she promised to keep it to herself. As had Dix, but he swore one more incident and he was moving to the campus and they could fucking try and remove him.
Where I would typically just argue against it, I had to admit the ferociousness in Dix’s tone had been as fierce as Aubrey’s defense. Even the guys had become my shadows. Jonas was always there. Lachlan and Ramsey were also always around. I couldn’t seem to get more than a foot outside my room before I had one of them there.
The twins had taken to checking on me more frequently. The softer rumors going around campus had been tolerable, but everyone seemed to knowsomethinghad happened even if they didn’t know what.
Thankfully, it was just me and Aubrey making our way between buildings. I’d tucked a knit cap over my head to keep it warm. The constant company forced me to be more cautious about the calls with Bronson or Jackie about Pen.
“It had to happen some time,” I teased him. “But Jackie said the doctors were never going to make us promises about everything. They have to look circumspect and doubtful. We just have to rely on the tests to give us answers.”
“I hate this shit,” he muttered, his voice dipping. “I hate that everything is wait and fucking see.”
“Me too.”
The silence stretched out between us as Aubrey and I just walked.
“Tell me something fun? Or good?” Like me, Bronson sometimes just needed something to hold onto. A positive thought or moment. Something that said we were going to be okay. “You guys hitting the studio after you graduate?”
I cut a look at Aubrey. What we were doing after graduation was still up in the air. I’d been writing again, but after the wreck of my room? Yeah, I hadn’t really managed the music as much. Jonas had been trying to help. He really had.
Unfortunately, each time the urge to write hit, the absence of my guitar sucked my muse dry. I had written damn near every song with it. Every. Single. One.
It was like someone had cut off my hand.
